UFC is bigger than boxing in america

Boxing and MMA/UFC are different sports and this really annoys me
UFC has massive advantages in many regards ie. advertising, matchmaking
Boxing is ****ed its that simple, with the abc belts and greedy promoters however boxing will always survive. Its a much much much more global sport than MMA and has the benefit due to the nature of the sport it will having more dominating champs. Look at the reigns of calzaghe, lewis, b-hop in their divisions there are only two ufc champs who have maintained their belts this year and Silva only just, GSP is no where near the household name that Mayweather/Pacquaio are and im talking just in England where mayweather is not known.

 

Matt, boxing reigns are not the same as current mma reigns. MMA champions are having to face a higher caliber of respective challengers more often than boxers.

This is what is hurting boxing.

 

I call BS on that. GSP and Anderson's reigns have plenty of mediocre/undeserving challengers. Even worse for some of those Pride reigns, thought that can somewhat be excused because they fought often. GSP's current streak is impressive but the calibre of fighters is not any better then what Hopkins and Lewis faced in their careers, not to mention that MMA fighters have a lot less fights in general.

 

Brock and GSP sell but Floyd and Manny sell too. Outside of that its always an event vs a main event. How the **** can boxing compete when the event is x vs jr or mosley vs mora. 2 of the most boring fights of the year.

 

Most MMA fighters don't get to chance to fight 20+ nobodies before stepping up in class, so the number of fights isn't relative in a general conversation.

Pierre and Silva have not had any gimmie defenses. Pierre's resume is a who's who at 170. Silva has also been defeating his division's best. There resume's would be the equivalent of opening Ring Magazine, looking at division Champions name, and realizing they have defeated almost every name underneath them.

 

Hardy, Cote, Maia, Leites & Irvin = gimmies. Even Sonnen is a career gatekeeper, but he was coming off a few top wins.

Edit: I forgot the biggest gimmie which should have been Serra I.

 

Serra and Leites both had won tournaments to crown a number one contender. Yeah they weren't top contenders but they had their shot by winning the tournament.

Maia is a BJJ World Champion and when he faced Silva had lost only once in his entire MMA career. That was also a late replacement fight because the original challenger got injured. That's a world away from a gimmie.

Irvin wasn't a scheduled world title fight and was in essence a 'bonus' fight as Silva experimented with moving up in weight. It wasn't put on ppv.

Patrick Cote was on a five fight win streak and had beaten real guys such as Almedia and Smith. Not a gimmie. And Chael Sonnen's overall record isn't particularly impressive he's a nightmare stylistic matchup for Silva. Not in a million years do such a fight get made in boxing.

 

Boxing has all the advantages in the world. It gets far more MSM coverage, it has tenure and so reaches older fans that didn't grow up with the UFC, its legalised in New York, it has the backing of HBO Showtime and ESPN, it has a deeper talent pool and a global audience. That it can't use all these advantage to produce more than three or four events each year that people actually want to pay for is disgraceful.

 

I can do the same for Haye's last two opponents:

Audley Harrison: Olympic Gold medalist, coming off a spectacular knockout against top rated British fighter Sprott to win the European Championship. Looking for redemption in a 'grudge' match.

John Ruiz: Rated among the top 10 HW for the past decade. Arguably should have won fights against top rated HWs Valuev and Chagaev in the past few years. In the best shape of his career (Joe Rogan would surely say "this is the best Ruiz ever").

You can hype up and polish turds all you want (like the UFC does), but any fan knows better.

 

You're making **** comparisons. Harrison is 39 years old without a relevant win. You picked Serra and Hardy as Pierre's worst defenses. Neither were hand picked like Harrison. Serra won the 4th season of TUF to get his shot, and Hardy beat Mike Swick in a title eliminator. Pierre had beaten everyone else, in the UFC, worthy of shot before the Hardy fight.

Haye has by no means eradicated the heavyweight division, and looking desperately for a worthy challenger. Haye is claiming to be the best, and fighting people Audley Harrison without ever even proving he is anybody at heavyweight.

 

Serra and Hardy weren't really top 10 fighters (Serra wasn't for sure). Neither deserved the shot at GSP, one was given because of a TV show and the other because he is British.

Now, like I said, I really respect GSP's reign. But there is no question that he has had 1-2 soft touches (and he got knocked out by one of them). Don't try to whitewash history just so you can 'sell' MMA as the superior sport like it doesn't have the same political BS that boxing does.

and btw, how is Harrisons Gold Medal win in 2000 any less meaningful then Brock's 2000 NCAA win?

 

LOL at Swick or Hardy in any sort of title eliminator. Also, the key there is "in the UFC". Why didn't GSP fight Diaz or Shields last march? Why excuse the faults of having a pro-wrestling style system running the sport?

 

When you've gone through all of your competition, you get fights like Swick and Hardy for title shots. Pierre had practically beaten everyone else in the organization.

I never said mma was perfect. I would love to see GSP have to defend against Diaz, but the UFC tries to monopolize it's talent. At least we're getting to see GSP against Shields this year. The big fights are getting made in mma more often than not. That's the difference between mma and boxing right now.